


Still Alive

by Rainbowrites



Series: Still Alive [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbowrites/pseuds/Rainbowrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the day Kurt lost his mother, Burt lost his wife, the woman he thought he would grow old with.</p><p>Everyday starts the same way</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Alive

**Author's Note:**

> A kind of prequel to Still Alive (On This Perfect Day). That was Kurt's story. Now it's Burt's turn.
> 
> Written because I don't know how to deal with things except by writing them, and it's easier to just pretend it happened to somebody else.

Kurt doesn’t cry when Burt tells him that he’s going to be spending a few days with Gramma okay? Doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even look at him.

 

(he screamed himself hoarse that first night, roaring at the top of his lungs for his Mommy as he battered at the walls and windows as if maybe if he made enough noise she would hear him and come back)

 

(he hasn’t said anything since)

 

Burt knows that what he’s doing is terrible. That he needs to be strong for his son, to be the father that a boy who just lost his mother needs. That he will spend the rest of his life trying to make up for this one moment of weakness. That he had already been losing his son, and that this might be the thing that finally does it.

 

But he also knows that if he doesn’t do this, Kurt will wake up one morning having lost both his parents instead of one.

 

\--

 

Every morning starts the same way.

 

He wakes up so cold, and for a second, he doesn’t know why. Turns to ask Lizzie if she turned up the AC during the night.

 

Remembers.

 

His mouth opens and closes with wet, choking noises.

 

_She’s dead._

 

_She’s dead._

 

 _She’s dead_.

 

It chases itself around his brain, tearing through his mind like barbed wire and driving him insane.

 

He’d heard that you were supposed to not be able to say them. The words: _she’s dead_. He doesn’t understand that. All he wants to do was scream it, to grab the people walking by on the street and shake them and sob _she’d dead, why are you still okay?_

 

He wants to drag the sun out of the sky and take apart with his bare hands because there’s no point to it anymore. Why can’t the world just.

 

Stop.

 

Just for a day, just for an hour

 

(just for forever)

 

until he can remember how to breathe again.

 

(how is he supposed to breathe when all he can see is her. Not breathing. Her chest still and cold in a way that he didn’t even realize was possible until he realized: it was)

 

Why does he still have to get up in the morning, why does he still have to try and work?

 

(why is the world still here if she’s not?)

 

There’s a cold hard lump in his chest, nestled right where she used to lie her head and listen to his heart beat. His skin tingles, like someone reached down and scooped out everything that made him _him_. Like there’s nothing warm inside him anymore, just cold air whistling through a shell and battering against the poor, hard lump of what’s left of his heart.

 

He knows it’s stupid, has read the cliche a hundred times before, but he just keeps expecting to see her. Not because he thinks she’s still alive (she’sdeadshe’sdeadshe’sdead) but because he hasn’t yet trained his body not to tense at every footstep it hears. Not to expect her coming around the corner, clumping up the stairs and complaining about her useless boss.

 

(she always said the place would fall apart without her. What are they doing without her? Are they falling apart? Are they dying? Slowly bleeding out, crimson blood pumping out of a mortally wounded body now that they’ve had their heartsoul _life_ ripped out of them?)

 

It’s force of habit, and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to stop that.

 

(how he’s supposed to _want_ to)

 

Everything just feels so frivolous. Everything except lying in his bed and crying. That feels right.

 

But the world keeps on turning, even though he doesn’t know why.

 

(it shouldn’t)

 

So he has to lever himself out of bed every morning.

 

(not get up, he doesn’t get up. He feels like someone else is pulling at his limbs and tugging him out of bed, screaming into cotton-plugged ears that he needs to _move_ )

 

He has to walk into work. And sit at his desk. And stare at the computer in front of him. And pretend it matters.

 

They won’t let him into the garage, and he doesn’t even have the energy to care. But they’re sympathetic (pitying) enough to let him sit in the office and pretend that he’s getting better. That he’s healing.

 

They clap him on the back when he walk in and don’t say anything. When he remembers to be, he’s grateful for it. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but he also doesn’t know how to think about anything else.

 

(he’s so cold)

 

It’s just all so fucking pointless.

 

That thought runs through his mind too. Chasing after _she’sdeadshe’sdeadshe’sdead_ and dragging talons through the raw pinkness of his brain.

 

He hates that he doesn’t cry all the time anymore. That he can sit in his office and pretend now. That he can go a few hours without crying so hard everytime he sees himself he’s shocked to see only water and not blood. He hates it. She deserves to be wept over for the rest of his life. He shouldn’t be allowed to feel anything but that bone-deep agony for the rest of his life.

 

She’s worth it.

 

(she was worth it)

 

He hates that he knows, with a terrible surety, that someday he’s going to be okay.

 

It’s a horrible feeling to know that. The betrayal tastes like blood.

 

But somehow his stomach still grumbles, his head still hurts when he looks at a computer screen too long, he still has to use the bathroom. His body keeps cutting through the agony and making him remember that he’s alive

 

(she’sdeadshe’sdeadshe’sdead)

 

So he still gets up. Still eats his breakfast. Cold cereal, because she was always the one to fuss and insist he eat a proper egg and toast breakfast. Still goes to work. Still stares at his computer screen for seven hours, before leaving to go back to the house.

 

(not home)

 

Still goes to the bathroom. Still shops for dinner. Still sits in the kitchen and eats microwaved frozen dinners and drinks the raspberry lemonade she liked that he still finds himself putting into the cart every time he goes.

 

(still sits in front of the toilet and wonders if he’s going to puke, because he may still get hungry but food just disgusts him now. Makes his stomach _hurt_ , like it’s punishing him for still needing to eat, such a mortal, _normal_ thing to do. Leaves him constantly feeling like he might just throw it all back up)

 

(he’s hungry but he can’t eat. He’s alive but he can’t breathe. He’s walking but he can’t get anywhere. He’s so tired but he can’t sleep)

 

Still stares at the TV screen and pretends he’s watching it. Still goes to bed. Still closes his eyes and tries not to remember that tomorrow he’ll have to do it have to do it all over again. That tomorrow morning he’ll wake up and for for one groggy second be confused because the bed is too cold. That tomorrow morning he’ll have to remember it all over again.

 

(she’sdeadshe’sdeadshe’sdead)

 

Still keeps on breathing.

 

Still alive.


End file.
